


Mess

by chancetheshadow



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Cute Kids, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/F, Family, Fluff, Fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 14:22:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16766860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chancetheshadow/pseuds/chancetheshadow
Summary: Small window into the Hollstein household. What's got Carmilla on edge?Old work being reposted.





	Mess

**Author's Note:**

> An old work being reposted. Hope you enjoy. As always Comments and Kudos are much appreciated. Have a wonderful day everyone.

“Bailey Patrick Karnstein-Hollis, bring your little butt down here.” Carmilla shouted as she shuffled through various stacks of papers obviously looking for something. 

Had anyone else been sent to look for anything down in the Karnstein-Hollis basement they would have given up before starting. Having an artist and an investigative journalist for the Silas Daily in the same household usually meant the house was a mess more often than not. But they kept up with it, or at least they tried to. To try and contain some of the mess, Laura agreed to let Carmilla turn the basement into an art studio of sorts since she was completely opposed to letting her use the living room to do her work. Carmilla had a tendency of being messy when she got inspired. Paintings were leaning against every wall; some finished, others works in progress; the workbench was hidden by the piles of paper with half thought out sketches scattered over it and the paint covered rags hanging off the edges; even the small window had paint splotches on it. How Carmilla managed to get paint there was still a mystery to Laura. But the chaotic organization seemed to work for Carmilla, or at least it did up until today. 

“Wow, using full names?” Laura asked with a giggle as she came up behind Carmilla leaning her chin on her shoulder as she continued sifting through some papers.Hearing her wife call their son by his full name caught her attention so she came down to investigate. 

“Not now, Cupcake.” 

Carmilla stepped away from her to look through another set of sketches that were piled on the floor. Laura was a little surprised by her wife’s response. She wasn’t exactly rude but rarely was she so riled up that she brushed her off. 

“Yeah, mom,” Bailey answered. 

He was standing on the staircase looking down at his moms confused at why he was being called down to the basement since he wasn’t really allowed down there.

“Were you down here yesterday?” Carmilla asked pointedly causing Bailey to look at his hands that were now nervously clutching onto the railing.

“Uhhhh….” he answered hesitantly.

“Bailey?” Carmilla asked once more. 

His habit of biting his lower lip when he was keeping himself from rambling, a habit he’d learned from Laura, along with his abundance of curiosity. But that resistance didn’t last long. 

“My ball fell through the basement door and I just came down here to get it.” 

Laura could sense his unease knowing invading Carmilla’s space would not go well.

“Is that all that happened?” Carmilla’s voice was calm, but Laura knew that was not necessarily a good thing. 

Bailey again was biting his lip, now tapping his foot, something he picked up from Carmilla. He shook his head and told her that his ball had knocked over a container of paint onto some of her sketches.

“What? What did you do with them?” she took a step towards Bailey. 

He still wasn’t able to look at her.

“I threw them away. Mom said it was no big deal,” he mumbled looking over at Laura for support. Carmilla also looked over at her but in shock.

“Thanks for throwing me under the bus there, kiddo,” Laura muttered to herself.

“You said it was no big deal?” 

Carmilla’s calm voice had gone out the paint splashed window, now she was really getting riled up. Laura took a deep breath before telling Bailey to head back upstairs and that they’d be up in a minute. 

“No. Bailey, stay down here. I’m not done talking to you.” Carmilla’s stern look kept their nine-year old rooted to his spot. 

“Carm.” Laura looked at her intently, “I think Bailey should go upstairs.” 

Carmilla huffed once before she nodded and sent Bailey upstairs. He practically sprinted up the stairs, knowing an argument was about to burst between his parents. 

Once he was out of earshot, Carmilla launched into this grown up “discussion”.

“How could you do that?”

Laura looked at her as though she had sprouted a second head.

“How could I have done what, Carm? Sent our son out so we could talk about this like mature adults?” 

“No,” slowly she walked towards her wife who was still confused on how to feel about her wife’s sudden temper tantrum. “How could you let Bailey think that it’s okay to spill paint all over my sketches and then just throw them away like nothing happened? You’re basically telling him it's okay to lie to me.”

Now things were a little clearer, but not entirely. Laura lifted her hands up trying to calm herself down just as much as she was trying to calm her wife. 

“Okay, A. I didn’t want him to feel terrible about ruining some sketches that you don't even look at after you draw them. And B. I am not teaching him to lie to you.”

“Laura,” Carmilla clutched her shoulders to make sure she was really listening to her. “If I hadn’t asked him if he’d been down here he never would have told me about spilling the paint or getting rid of my sketches. He would’ve kept it to himself because you said it was okay.”

Laura pushed her hands off her shoulders as she responded.

“Well I’m sorry I was trying to protect our son from feeling embarrassed and guilty…”

“He needs to feel those things.” Carmilla took a step back taking a second to really look at her wife. “Laura, I know you and I want Bailey to be the happiest kid ever, but Cupcake, you and I know that’s not how it works. The universe is huge and it's uncaring. One moment you can get sucked into a hell pit and the next get pulverized by a meteor. Really in the grand scheme of things it’ll mean nothing.”

Laura gave her wife a look that told her she was getting too philosophical for their conversation. But then again what should she expect when she married a woman who double majored in art and philosophy.

Carmilla continued with a slight head nod of acknowledgement of her wife’s reaction. “The point is if nothing means anything then the only things that mean something is what we make. And I want Bailey to know that no one is perfect and that he doesn't need to hide his mistakes. Not from me, not from you, not from anyone.” 

She took a step away from Laura and started pacing back and forth, taking long breaths and running her hands through her hair, a anxious tick she’d had since Laura knew her at university. 

Laura watched her for a few moments, allowing her space to calm herself down. She and Carmilla had had lots of conversation on how they wanted to raise Bailey, but none of them had ever led to such an intense reaction like what Carmilla was showing her now. She took a step towards Carmilla, placing a hand on her shoulder to stop her pacing. 

“Hey.” Gently looking at her eyes she stroked her cheek and tucked a loose strand of her jet black hair that had gotten out from her usual messy bun. 

“What’s really going on, Carm? I know you’ve been stressed for the past week or so, what with your showcase coming up. I mean you’ve literally been down here almost twenty-four seven.”

Carmilla tried to shake her off with saying that she just wanted everything to be perfect for the showcase since it was going to be one of the biggest ones she’d ever done. Lucky for Laura, fifteen years of being together, ten of them being married, had given her plenty of time to know when her wife was lying to her. Not that she did it often, but when Carmilla tried to keep things a secret from Laura it often didn’t last long.

“Carm, I know your art is important and this showcase is probably going to be the highlight of the art world this year, but,” she tucked her hand under her chin to make her look directly at her, “you’ve never cared about your sketches. Those were always a brainstorming technique for you anyway. What makes these so important?”

Carmilla closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. Her lips were in a straight line as she kept trying to calm herself. But one look at Laura’s pouty face, make her laugh and spill the secret she’d been keeping for the past week. 

“Those weren’t sketches that you and Bailey got rid of.” Laura scrunched her face up in confusion. “You know that bunched up face is adorable, Buttercup.” Carmilla tapped Laura’s forehead causing her to relax her face into a her irritated expression. This only made Carmilla smile wider. 

“Carm.”

“Alright. You know how Bailey has been begging us for a treehouse and a puppy. Those papers were a blueprint for a treehouse in the backyard. I had Laf make one up for us, you know since they are the architect, and neither of us want that kid falling out of a tree. I thought it would be a cool project we could start for the summer, since Bailey will be off from school and it’s his birthday in a few days.” 

Laura couldn’t help but sigh at her wife’s birthday surprise for their son. She pulled her into a hug falling a little more in love with her wife. Then she remembered one small detail. 

“Wait,” she pulled away from the hug for a second. “What do treehouse blueprints have to do with a puppy?”

Carmilla rubbed her neck nervously. 

“Yeah about that…” 

She pulled away from her wife and walked over to a door that Laura knew she used as a walk in supply closet for her work. Or so she thought.

Opening the door Laura saw that the small room that was usually crammed with extra canvases, buckets of paint, and brushes was now void of any such supplies. Instead there was a large dog bed covered in an assortment of toys, a set of water and food bowls, and sheets of newspaper set towards the back of the small room. Laying spread across the bed with his paws in the air was a three week old boxer puppy. He was sleeping but when he heard the door open so did his eyes. Rolling quickly to his feet he stumbled over to the short gate set up in the doorway, excited to see people. It yapped up at them wanting them to pet him. Laura couldn’t help but awe at the adorable creature. She bent down and pet his little head causing him to lick and whine at being given attention. He started to yap up at them again, when Laura pulled her hand away to look back at Carmilla.

“Hey,” she told him sternly as she snapped her fingers. With a final whine he backed away from the gate and sat down still wagging his tail, waiting for Carmilla’s next order.

“Scared this little guy into listening to you too, huh?” Laura teased.

“Well, if he was whining and yapping all the time, Bailey would definitely know there was a dog down here.”

“In this mess?” Laura looked around Carmilla’s jumble of workplace. “He would never have noticed.”

Laura stepped over the gate and sat down to play with the puppy as he ran into her lap dragging one of his stuffed toys with him.

Carmilla let out a soft chuckle before asking, “You mad at me?”

Laura didn’t look up from the small bundle of furry energy when she answered.

“Am I mad that you raised your voice at our son and me?” Carmilla visible flinched at the recount of her actions. “Yes. But am I mad that you planned a surprise for our son and got upset that we accidentally ruined it?” She stood and held Carmilla’s face in her hands stroking her cheeks with her thumbs. “No. I’m just a little upset that you didn’t include me in the planning is all.”

Carmilla smiled. “Knowing you, Cupcake, you would’ve spilled the beans as soon as I brought home the yapper.” 

She nodded towards the pup that was now standing with his front paws on Laura’s leg, softly whining for her to play with him. Laura scooped him up in her arms, placing a kiss on his head as he tried to catch Carmilla’s fingers that were currently booping his nose repeatedly. The way she played with the young dog reminded Laura of how she used to play peek-a-boo with Bailey when she fed him in the morning as a baby. 

“I guess I should probably go talk to Bailey, huh?” she asked not looking away from the small pup she was playing with. 

“That would be the parental thing to do. And you did say you wanted Bailey to know that people aren’t perfect.” Laura’s smug grin brought an annoyed look to Carmilla’s face, that only made Laura laugh. 

There was only one way to effectively wiping the smirk off her wife’s face. Before Laura would start bellowing with laughter Carmilla invaded her space, planting a hard kiss onto her wife’s lips. They both smiled into the kiss, knowing that no matter what argument they got into, they eventually came back to each other. The kiss didn’t last long since they were soon interrupted by puppy kisses from the small canine who was feeling left out. Laughing they pulled away from each other, shaking their heads.

“And here we thought Bailey would be the only one to interrupt our moments.” 

Carmilla laughed harder remembering the time when Bailey was just an infant constantly crying for food or attention effectively taking away any time the new parents had for intimacy. 

They played with the pup for a few more minutes before deciding to head back upstairs. 

“Alright yappy, you have to stay in here just for a bit longer.” Carmilla rubbed her nose to the pup’s who just licked it, before standing up to leave the basement with her wife.

“Yappy? Is that what we’re going to call him?”

They gently closed the door once they noticed that he was too occupied with his stuffed Tigger to notice their absence. 

“Just for now. Then we can call him Brownie or Cookie or something,” Carmilla teased as she led them up the stairs.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” Laura said as they reached the top.

“So I’ve been told,” she answered looking back at her wife.

Carmilla held the door open for Laura to pass through, but she hesitated for a moment. 

Looking at Carmilla she said, “Maybe you should talk to Bailey alone. I think this conversation is more for the two of you.”

Carmilla knew her wife was right, but she didn’t really want to face her nine year old alone. She still hadn’t gotten the hang of apologizing so when she had to say it to her son, which wasn’t all that often thankfully, she felt even more out of place. Carmilla was getting so lost in her thoughts on what she would say to Bailey she almost didn’t notice that Laura was closing the basement door with her still inside.

“Hey, you just want to play with the yapper don’t you?” she asked to the mostly closed door.

“Have fun,” Laura called through the small crack before completely closing the door.

It took Laura exactly twenty seven seconds to get back to the storage room and sit down to play with Yappy. He’d immediately run to her lap again covering her hands and face with kisses.

“Carm was right. I definitely would have spilled the beans if I knew you were down here.”


End file.
